Jonathan Freedland’s latest essay at ‘Comment is Free’, about President Obama’s upcoming visit to Israel, is boilerplate Guardian: It promotes the idea that a US President needs to coax truculent Israelis who have lost their soul to ‘the occupation’ into pursuing peace, while failing to acknowledge Israeli concerns and ignoring Palestinian responsibility for the conflict.

It’s too late to change Obama’s itinerary, but perhaps not too late to influence the in-flight entertainment on Air Force One. It’s a long journey, so the president should have time to see two films, both Oscar nominees. The first is not Les Miz or Argo, but 5 Broken Cameras. Shot by an amateur Palestinian film-maker in the West Bank village of Bil’in, it is a powerful eyewitness account of the everyday reality of the occupation, from unarmed villagers clashing with Israeli soldiers to Bil’in’s cherished olive trees set aflame by nearby settlers.

The depiction of Palestinian protests in the film which Freedland is referring to, however, is egregiously skewed.

The documentary, ‘5 Broken Cameras’, focuses on the Palestinian village of Bi’lin, where the local population, in conjunction with international (largely European) supporters, has been demonstrating on a weekly basis to protest the Israeli security fence a few kilometers east of Modi’in.

The protests, which commenced eight years ago, have continued each week despite the relocation of the fence as the result of an Israeli Supreme Court ruling which enlarged Palestinian territory, making the village more suitable for Palestinian agricultural.

Map outlining the new security fence route bordering the Palestinian village of Bil’in

The film never mentions that the security fence which is the object of protest was erected as a result of the Palestinian terror war in 2000-2005, in which waves of suicide bombers attacked Jewish civilians indiscriminately – constructed for the sole purpose of preventing terrorists from walking into Israeli cities and blowing themselves up.

A photojournalist covering Bil’in security fence protest, Aug 2012.

More importantly, the narrative, advanced in the film and evidently accepted by Freedland, that protests are staged by “villagers” who are “unarmed”, represents a gross distortion.

Indeed, the film reportedlyedited outscenes of the Palestinian ‘protagonists’ engaging in violence against Israeli soldiers. And, while they may not possess firearms as such, they certainly engage in violent rioting each week, typically throwing rocks and metal objects, as well as firebombs, at Israeli security forces.

Like so many symbols of the Palestinian “resistance”, the weekly protests at the security fence near Bil’in are not spontaneous, grassroots acts of civil disobedience but, rather, choreographed, media-friendly acts of violence.

despite the relocation of the fence as the result of an Israeli Supreme Court ruling which enlarged Palestinian territory, making the village more suitable for Palestinian agricultural.

It took the army about four years to move 2.7 km of fence! And if the Guardian wrote something as ludicrous like “.. which enlarged Palestinian territory …” when referring to Israel, you would write at least three articles about it !

You should also point out the following: The supreme Court in its ruling said: “The route passes mostly through topographically inferior territory and it endangers the forces patrolling along it. There is no way to explain [the choice of] this route, unless it stemmed from a desire to include the eastern part of Mattityahu East on the western side of the fence.” i.e. the decision to cut off the fields of Biliin from the village had nothing to do with security !

Which illustrates that it IS possible to get justice through truly non-violent means. Scheduled media events in which one side is attacked with everything short of bullets are not “non-violent” by any sane definition.

There is always a good feeling to know the huge number of experienced “external” armchair generals who – without having the slightest idea about the topography, about the conflict, about the context and about nothing relevant to the subject – are experts on the security needs of Israel. Thank you for your kind contribution.

Correct. There is such a thing as due legal process in Israel. The wheels of justice turn slowly. But they turned.

And if the Guardian wrote something as ludicrous like “.. which enlarged Palestinian territory …”

But moving the fence DID enlarge Palestinian territory. Again, what is your problem?

i.e. the decision to cut off the fields of Biliin from the village had nothing to do with security !

It had everything to do with security, only more with the security of Israeli residents and less to do with IDF security. You see, the IDF, unlike the terrorists and the Arab armies, are more concerned with protecting their citizens than themselves.

The army erected a fence around Bilin for security purposes – to protect Israelis. And yes, including the eastern part of Mattityahu East on the western side of the fence contributes to the security of the Mattityahu residents who would otherwise find themselves in hostile Palestinian territory and open to lynch and murder by those (n)ever-peace loving Palestinians. The judge criticised the route because it endangered the soldiers as well as cutting off Bilin farmers from their land.

Correct. There is such a thing as due legal process in Israel. The wheels of justice turn slowly. But they turned.

Sorry, but in any country the ‘wheels of justice’ stop turning when the Supreme Court makes its decision; there is no appeal beyond the highest court. So why was the work (2.7 km of fence) delayed four years ??

external your claim that;
“Sorry, but in any country the ‘wheels of justice’ stop turning when the Supreme Court makes its decision; there is no appeal beyond the highest court”
Is wrong.

In the UK even after the Supreme Court makes its decision the ‘wheels of justice’ carry on turning, very slowly.
From the Supreme Court website;
“An individual contending that his Convention rights have not been respected by a decision of a United Kingdom court (including The Supreme Court) against which he has no domestic recourse may bring a claim against the United Kingdom before the European Court of Human Rights.”

As I have no doubt that this is also the case with other European countries as well would you like to retract your statement?

Are you serious ? My comment says that in any legal system there is a last stop for any judicial case, beyond which there is no appeal. In Europe it may be a country’s highest court or it may be the European Court. In Israel, the last stop is the Supreme Court. Were there any other court proceedings after the Supreme Court issued its judgment on the fence near Bili’in. So the govt and army received a final and binding court decision and they sat on it for four years while the demonstrations continued.

external your comment is clear, you wrote;
“Sorry, but in any country the ‘wheels of justice’ stop turning when the Supreme Court makes its decision; there is no appeal beyond the highest court”

Now which part of your own sentence “in any country the ‘wheels of justice’ stop turning when the Supreme Court makes its decision” is difficult for you to understand?
Is it the term “any country”?

Once again, clearly your claim does not apply to ‘any country’ there are exceptions in fact a great many exceptions.
Would you like to retract your statement, or carry on digging yourself deeper and deeper into a hole and expose your own ignorance?

OK: I revise my “sentence to : “in any country the ‘wheels of justice’ stop turning when the highest court makes its decision”. Happy ???? The Israeli Supreme Court is the highest court available to claimants in Israel and it made its decision. Clear ??? Now will you address the issue ?

Or perhaps you want to give the Palestinians & Israeli 5th column left-wing traitors the right to appeal decisions of the Israeli Supreme Court at the European Court of Human Rights …………

Do you have an answer to this perfectly legit question?
If no it is best not to answer.
As for External’s question?

There may be a perfect reasonable excuse to delay the movement.
For the forces to work in order to erect / remove an obstacle, a peaceful working enviornment must exist.
Was Biilib and Naalin a peaceful enviornment?

Judging by the film itself it was not!

You and the Pales have only themselve to blame.
Some people prefer the status quo. Especially people who work for UNRWA…

Gerald. The question was (and I summarise): Why did it take the IDF four years to action a Supreme Court ruling that the fence be moved? That is a reasonable question. There may of course be a reasonable answer, but I for one don’t know what that answer is. Can anyone help?

Labenal,
thank you for summarising the question, or to put it another way putting it into a form of English.

I don’t know the answer, but I do know it would be gross hypocrisy for someone living in the UK to be critical of the wheels of justice turning slowly. How long have we been trying to send a notorious Islamist terrorist back to Jordan, and at the time of writing this still trying

Peter:
None of us can even dream of approaching your self-proclaimed armchair “expertise”.
The “expertise” in my comment was not mine, it was that of the Israel Supreme Court.
You didn’t give your opinion on the sentence in this article: “which enlarged Palestinian territory, making the village more suitable for Palestinian agricultural. The land in question had always been used by the village for agricultural purposes before it was cut off by the barrier.

The land in question had always been used by the village for agricultural purposes before it was cut off by the barrier.

Ah, but you don’t question or mention why the barrier was erected in the first place. it was only erected in the last 5-10 years or so. Now, what important event provoked the building of such a barrier? It couldn’t be the murderous intifada which killed thousands of Israelis when Palestinian terrorists and suicide bombers ran wild over Israel? Nah, couldn’t be!

Excuse the sarcasm. If your beloved Palestinians had learned to live peacefully with their neighbours, the barrier would never have been erected. They have only themselves to blame.

Ahh, but I never said that I disagreed with the construction of the barrier; I only questioned the location. The Israeli Supreme Court concluded that the location “passes mostly through topographically inferior territory and it endangers the forces patrolling along it. . It then draws the obvious conclusion: There is no way to explain [the choice of] this route, unless it stemmed from a desire to include the eastern part of Mattityahu East on the western side of the fence.” (I copied these quotes from Arutz Sheva). There were stories in the Israeli media at that time about rumours that the initial location was chosen due to intense lobbying by developers…..

Yes, using “restored” certainly makes Israel look more like the humanitarian country with an iron clad commitment to the rule of law that it actually is. Although I don’t know that this could be classified as a correction per se.

“How could the territory be enlarged if the ruling only returned to them an area that they had always used for agriculture, until the barrier was built ”
So you admit that they only used the area but do not own it.
It was Ottoman states land, later administered by the British mandate and from 1948 on governed and occupied by Jordania. No protests, neither Palestinian nor UN.
Since 1967 administrated by Israel.

Im not a security expert but I’m very much familiar with governement bureaucracy. My best guess is that the process took a long time because the assigning of the new path of the fence caused a lot of legal etc. problems and they didn’t want to open the passage until the new part has been completed. My heart goes out to the inconvenienced farmers but if the delay saved only one Israeli live (as I’m sure it did) then I can live with the pain.

An independant investigation into the original route’s decision should have been carried out, and the person who authorised it sacked.
We are also looking at a possible just claim for compensation to the farmers.

Itsik i have nothing against compensating the farmers (if you insist) using your tax pennies and not of the Israeli taxpayers money. Feel free to write to your MP and request him/her to put forward your very generous suggestion to the UK government. And be a bit less harsh about sacking people for political reasons it is not exactly acceptable in a democracy…

Are the critics of Jonathan suggesting that the villagers in Bilin should accept the Wall built on their land by an occupying force and that makes them violent? Weird. I is like suggesting the Parisians should have accepted the Nazi occupation and not resisted that occupied because of the rulings by the Third Reich.
Palestinians, in international law has every right to resist occupation. Anybody who denies that to the Palestinians whilst supporting resistance to occupations in Europe is being racist.

Are the critics of Jonathan suggesting that the villagers in Bilin should accept the Wall built on their land by an occupying force and that makes them violent?
Correct. The Palestinan violence is caused by the occupation. Everybody knows that in Hebron well before the existence of Israel in 1929 the Palestians wanted to hug their Jewish neighbors just they have been misunderstood and were forced to massacre them in order to show them the wrongs of the future occupation. Naturally when the the israelis and Arafat negotiated the end of the occupation the suicide bombers simply wanted to express their non-violence, but mistakenly pushed the wrong button.
And yes the villagers have to accept the barrier until they can’t abandon their somehow bizarre habits to express their longings for peaceful negotiations.Weird. I is like suggesting the Parisians should have accepted the Nazi occupation and not resisted that occupied because of the rulings by the Third Reich.
Thank you for demonstrating your classic anti-Semitism.Palestinians, in international law has every right to resist occupation
According to Jason international law allows to murder civilains in pizzerias and on autobuses. Never would think about it…Seems to me that according to the most basic laws we have the right to live and protect ourselves against murderous terror. I know for you we are not humans and should just commit suicide, but we have to disagree – tough luck JasonAnybody who denies that to the Palestinians whilst supporting resistance to occupations in Europe is being racist.
Says a card-carying classic textbook example Jew-hater…

anneinpt love your sarcasm. I suppose it has something to do with intifida and with the Palestinians resisting the occupation. It also has a great deal to do with Nakba with Dir Yasin and with over 4.5 million refugees not allowed to return to their homes.

Of course, it has also to do with all those occupying Palestinian homes in historic Palestine. Yes, let us admit the reasons behind what is happening in Palestine. However, let us do that honestly and not forgetting any of the dimensions associated with those events. Action, according to the laws of Physics, do solicit reaction.

Action, according to the laws of Physics, do solicit reaction.
I’m happy to see your obvious familiarity with Newton’s laws Jason.
So we agree that if you are trying to kill us we must react accordingly.

Nakba? 4.5 million refugees?so you’ll have to agree that it has to do with 4 million Jewish refugees from arab coutnries and thsoe who occpiy their homes ., Historic Palestine? do you mean to tell me that there was an independent Palestiain state that the Isralei occupied?

No it think, more accurate figure is 6 million between my estimate of 4.5 million and yours of 9 million. Reasonable compromise in figures nevertheless immaterial. Are you a stand-up comedian? But do you not think making jokes out of peoples misery is in bad taste?

Neither is ignoring peoples misery, for example the suffering of the 800,000 Jews ethnically-cleansed from Arab countries. Oh, sorry, I forgot that the Zionists are responsible for duping the Arabs into getting rid of their Jews …..

Barry, would you like to write the letters to all those Bedouin and Druze soldiers?
Would you like to explain some of our MKs and directors and public sector workers about your new vision where they should go?

Indeed jews were treated better by muslim than by Christian but please don;t make them appear as jews lover. They weren’t . They had their share of jews massacares forced conversion to Islam etc. all over the muslim world

I thought it was Prophet Abraham who went Saudi Arabia? May be all of this is a myth but at least that is the narrative and left his new born and the mother to fend for themselves in the desert. So, if anything it was the Jews who went to Saudi Arabia. Perhaps they may have come back from Saudi Arabia as returnees and became Palestinians, just as today’s Jews are claiming to return from Europe. Oh I love these holy stories.

FFS Barry. How far back do you want to go? Let’s return Mexico to the Aztecs. Peru to the Incas. Britain to the Celts. Germany to the Goths and Visigoths. Australia to the Aborigines. Siberia to the Inuits.

History is full of various peoples migrating, expanding, retreating, invading, fleeing, appearing and disappearing.

Can we stop dealing with the 7th century and try to deal with the 21st?

The Hungarian Peter sitting I assume somewhere in Hungary can be so knowledgeable about a village in Palestine is astounding. However, I much rather take the information provided by the Palestinians in Five broken Cameras any day than by a Hungarian Peter. Nothing racist, it is just I find difficult that somebody who does not live in Bilin would know more than the cameraman who had five of cameras broken while filming the realities of the occupation in Bilin.

The Hungarian Peter sitting I assume somewhere in Hungary can be so knowledgeable about a village in Palestine is astounding.
This is not your lucky day ashley, I have been living for decades in Israel and not like you I know the land, the people and not like you I speak the local language. The Five Broken Camera is a propaganda movie using tendentiously edited documentary recordings. What you find difficult is absolutely irrelevant, reading your posts I’m sure you find difficult to blow your nose without a warder’s help.

It’s really quite simple, ashley. Peter is jewish. You see, Palestine was always just another name for the land of Israel, and a western word at that ( it’s not Arabic) derived from Philistine. People related this name Palestine to the Jews for millennia. It used to be quite common knowledge for the average person. The League of Nations knew it. That’s why they wrote about the Jews being in the country as of right and not of sufferance. You must forgive them for overlooking the Palestinian people, but in their defense no one had ever heard of the “the Palestinian People,” not even today’s (and, of course, eternally, for all of history) Palestinian People. Then came along Arab “palestinian” replacement theology. Then they saw you come walking along as ignorant as a sheep. baaa.

The double king size ignorance of anti-Semites is well known but there should be a limit. I’m not living in Palestine ashley (no such country exists) but in Israel, whose main official language is Hebrew and not Arabic. (Arabic is a Semitic language? What are you saying? Nobody knew that before your genial discovery…)
Re. your question about my rights, let me ask you how did you get the right to waste the oxygen by breathing when you have the IQ of a cancerous cell?

I know Jesus Christ was also European they tell me according to the historic records kept at pinewood and now transferred to Hollywood. Besides make up your mind was it always Palestine or did it never exist? Can you try and agree among yourself. Palestinians have no doubt they always exist and will continue to do so long after the Apartheid wall is pulled down.

Palestine was a peace of land not a state. Palestinian have no doubt they always existed ? They also said that they have no doubt that jews have no conection to Israel. That the western wall is really muslim . so?